The Priest, the Witch and the Nature of Sin

One thing that virtually all Christians can agree on is that God hates sin.  From the fire and brimstone crowd fully expecting God to smite the heathen to the kinder, gentler "love the sinner" crowd, everyone agrees that God "hates the sin".  All this unity tends to fall apart when you ask the next logical question, what is sin?

Well if you go by the way it's used in conversation sin is almost always something sexual, most likely homosexuality.  When you hear someone talking about how Pastor X isn't afraid to call sin sin or how Church Y doesn't compromise on sin then they never mean gluttony or depriving widows and orphans of justice.  It almost always means extramarital sex and usually gay sex*.

But maybe I'm being unfair here.  Maybe a better place to look for a definition of sin would be in church doctrine.  Here sin is described as falling short of the will of God, the refusal to follow God's plan, opposition to God, something that alienates man from God.  Sin is disobedience to the Commandments of God or as 1 John 3:4 puts it, "sin is lawlessness".  Sin is wickedness and evil**.  The problem with all those definitions is that they are all frustratingly vague and prone to loopholes.  That's why, if you but a dozen Biblical scholars in a room you will probably end up with 15 different interpretations of Scripture and at least 4 new denominations and one new sect...

So no, I don't find Christians or Christian dogma particularly useful for a good, useful definition of "sin".  Instead I found what I consider to be the perfect definition in the writings of an Agnostic fantasy writer.  In Terry Pratchett's book Carpe Jugulum, you will find the following conversation between Mightily Oats (a priest) and Granny Weatherwax (a witch) on the nature of sin:

"And that's what your holy men discuss, is it?'
'Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example.'
'And what do they think? Against it, are they?'
'It's not as simple as that. It's not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of grey.'
'Nope.'
'Pardon?'
'There's no greys, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.'
'It's a lot more complicated than that-'
'No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts.'
'Oh, I'm sure there are worse crimes-'
'But they starts with thinking about people as things. . .' "

Now THAT is a useful definition!  Sin is treating people as things.  Easy to remember, easy to apply and as a bonus, very hard to find a loophole in!  Abusing, exploiting, degrading, deceiving people are sins because it can only be done by treating other people as things for you to use for your own gratification.  See?  This works!  Well it works for all the actual sins, not so much the bogus ones and I'm fine with that.

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*Worst sin of all?  Extramarital gay sex!  Though I guess you could totally fix that by legalizing gay marriage...

**But the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10) which may explain why the Catholics didn't take child molesting priests all that seriously - after all, raping a child has no root in the love of money so how could it be evil?

Breaking the Salvation Spell

Let me tell you about my landlord.

First off, I don’t think “landlord” is quite the right term since we have quite an informal arrangement, but I do pay him for the roof over my head so I guess landlord technically applies.  Anyway, Oom Eddie* is a rather remarkable person.  For one thing he has forever immunized me against the hateful idea preached by some (Alex Jones, I’m looking at you) that schizophrenics are evil, demonic people desiring only torture and murder.  Oom Eddie may be schizophrenic but he is also the kindest, gentlest, most generous soul that I know.  Sure, I feel a twinge of worry when he mentions God speaking to him but then again, God only ever tells him to be good to others and to work on math problems so I’m not losing any sleep over it.  Really the only terrible thing he does is to eat his chicken mayo sandwiches with the chicken on the side!  As you may have guessed he is a deeply religious man, but unlike most of the people often described as “deeply religious” he actually walks the talk.  Despite growing up in church and being among believers for all of my 33 years I have never seen anyone this consistent about practicing what Jesus preached.  No beggar at our gate ever goes away without being fed.  He doesn’t just pay lip service to helping the poor, he actually buys them groceries and clothes.  Also, he doesn’t differentiate between “deserving” and “undeserving” poor people – he helps everyone.  Going by what Jesus taught in the Parable of the Sheep and Goats*, Oom Eddie should be more certain of his place in the Kingdom of God than anyone else I know.  Yet recently he became deeply troubled regarding the subject of salvation. 

See he read the following in Revelation 20:15:
“If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
After reading that he really locked onto the idea that your name has to be in the Book of Life and

so he began to tell everyone that they had to pray God to write their names in the Book of Life.  No substitutes accepted – they had to ask it in those exact words.  There was a note on the fridge and everything!  However as amusing as it was, I realized that what he was doing was no different from what a very large segment of Evangelical Christianity has been doing for years.

Here’s the thing, open a piece of evangelical literature and you will find that everything from The Believers Voice of Victory to a Chick Tract will tell you the exact words you need to say in order to make it into heaven (and avoid hell).  If you are an evangelical Christian you know exactly what I’m talking about – the Sinner’s Prayer.  I had never really thought about it before, but isn’t that kind of weird?  Does it make sense that the same people who talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus (as their personal Saviour) would tell you to start said personal relationship with something so formulaic and impersonal?  Actually no, formula is not the right word for this.  When you have to say just the right words and mean it in just the right way to make something happen that’s not really a formula, that’s a spell!  If you believe God to be real and personal, why would you relate to him via spellcasting?  I’m no Jesus, but I like to think of myself as a person and I have to say that not one of my friendships exist because someone came up to me and spoke specific, preordained, “friendship words”.

Don’t get me wrong, I get why evangelists do that.  When there is a right way using the right terms then you can be more certain of your salvation.  Only it doesn’t really work that way does it?  As I child I must have prayed the sinner’s prayer dozens of times – pretty much one for every new version I came across.  Because that’s the problem with spellcasting isn’t it?  You have to do it just right.  You say your spell wrong and the magic brooms go nuts you might not make it to heaven.

However it was when I was searching the interwebs for examples of sinner’s prayers that I realized the far bigger problem with salvation-by-formula – it’s not Biblical.  Check out this example I found online under the heading:  “What must one do to be saved?”

Believe the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) that Jesus died for your sin, was buried, and has risen from the grave. (Mark 16:16) (Romans 10: 9&10)
Confess that Jesus is the Son of God.  (Acts 8:37) (Romans10:9&10)
Repent of the sin in your life.(Luke 13:3) (Acts 2: 38)
Be baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of your sin. (Acts 2:38) (Mark 16:16)

See the problem?  No, I’m not challenging the Theology of it, not in the least.  But did you notice how in order to put that formula together, they had to hop all over the New Testament?  Doesn’t that seem odd?  If there really was a right way, a series of steps to attain salvation, wouldn’t it be in one place?  Shouldn’t it be in one place?  We are talking about Salvation after all, the thing that determines your eternal destiny!  If ever there was need for a surefire formula, this would be it!  And yet scour the Gospels, page through the Epistles, you’ll find pretty much nothing resembling the formulaic salvation spells we ask new converts to pray.

I did however find some really great examples of actual sinner’s prayers.  I even got a Biblical one! The striking thing was that none of it resembled any kind of formula.  Instead they are heartfelt and uniquely true to the people praying them.

There is the restrained account by Dag Hammarskjold:
I don't know Who or What put the question, I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment, I did answer Yes.
There is the sacred rawness of Anne Lamott’s account:
I hung my head and said, "Fuck it: I quit." I took a long deep breath and said out loud, "All right. You can come in.
Then there is arguably the most famous sinner’s prayer in the world, the heartfelt plea of the nameless thief on the cross:
Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Now I don’t think you are ever likely to hear any of these after a preacher said “Everyone close your eyes and pray after me”.  These prayers lack a strong theological backbone, they are devoid of Scripture references and they aren’t that eloquent.  Yet they worked (well we know the last one did anyway).  They weren’t much but they were real and honest and stripped of all pretension.  The people who said those words owned them like you could never own a form prayer.  None of those could be mistaken for a spell, instead they sounded like something you would say to an actual Person.  They sound like the beginning of a real relationship.

But OK, maybe you think I’m trying to fix something that isn’t broken and that I’m simply nitpicking so I can have something to blog about.   Alas, much as I enjoy an occasional nitpick, this isn’t one of those cases.  I recently read that studies in the US have shown that for the past 40 years or so, the number of evangelical Protestants has remained stable.  Think about that.  The same people who report constant good responses to outreaches and altar calls have not been growing in number.  This means that we are losing converts at the same rate that we make them.  Now there are probably many reasons for this but maybe it’s time to start admitting that the formulas aren’t working.


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*For those unfamiliar with Afrikaner culture – it is customary to refer to all our elders as Oom (uncle) or Tannie (aunt) regardless of actual relation. 
**  That’s one teaching you never seem to hear used during evangelistic outreach, even though it explicitly deals with the subject of salvation…  Is it just me or does Jesus appear to be implying that faith without works is dead but that works (Without faith?  It never gets a mention...) is pretty much good enough?

On Blasphemy

To be against blasphemy one must be for it.
To oppose heresy one must allow it.

Does that seem contradictory to you?  Hear me out.

To those who claim to love God and value His Word, things like blasphemy and heresy are perverse and destructive and therefore we keep them undiscussable, unmentionable, not up for debate.  We consider such things taboo – they may not be talked about or even thought about.  But I contend that blasphemy and heresy thrives in the dark, that it becomes stronger when it becomes untalkaboutable.

It is in our nature to build a fence around taboo ideas.  Then to ensure that no one dwells to close to the fence we keep building wider and wider fences around the original offensive notion.  Almost inevitably these fences will begin to include our pet peeves and prejudices.  After a while, we start making more things taboo in the name of avoiding blasphemy and heresy when really it has become more about what we find offensive rather than what God may find offensive.  This is the point when tradition starts to void the will of God.  This is when people start to forget that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”. Over time, orthodoxy itself can become heresy.  Religion itself can become blasphemous. 

Think about it.  Jesus and the Apostles were considered heretics by their theological peers.  The first Christian martyr was executed as a blasphemer.

The Prophets weren’t persecuted by atheists.

What do we lose by engaging perceived heresy instead of silencing it?  If we are right then we may gain a deeper understanding of our own position and we may win over either those who disagree with us or those who are undecided on the matter.  At the very least it will give us a clearer understanding of the mind and motivation of those who disagree with us.  There is of course also the chance that engaging that which we find offensive will bring us to new and different points of view.  We may learn that we have been wrong all along and in these cases engagement offers us what silence never can – the opportunity for renewal.  Is a religion that can live only in the silence of its critics really a religion worth following?

Regarding blasphemy, does the Bible not show God more than capable of either smiting or forgiving those who trespass against Him?  Surely a deity who requires men to avenge offenses by other lowly men is not really deserving of the title?

So then I ask that you consider the following.

Which is the greater blasphemy?  Is it to possibly offend a Being who is more than capable of vindicating Himself?  Or is it to destroy – whether literally or figuratively – a man made in His Image?

Which is the greater heresy?  Is it making a statement that goes against orthodoxy?  Or is it being unwilling to even consider that not everything orthodox is right?

What is a Faith worth having?  Is it something that crumbles when challenged or something that becomes purified by questioning? 

Which is the more blasphemous act?  To offend a Being great enough to forgive those who trespass against it or to presume to act on God’s behalf?

Which is the more heretical act?  To question dogma when you could be mistaken or to enforce dogma when you could be mistaken?

6 Videos that will make Jesus bring a whip to church

With imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I decided to emulate my favourite online humour website – Cracked.com – and do some list style humour.  After seeing some pretty crazy Christian videos online lately I thought about doing something along the line of a “The 6 most ridiculous things done in Church”.  However after pouring through the many many offerings of Youtube I found myself less amused and more saddened.  After watching the 6 videos I chose I started to feel that a more appropriate title would “6 Videos that would convince an outsider that Christianity is a scam”.  You may not agree with that assessment my gentle reader but to me, these videos all point to some serious problems within the Body of Christ.  It is then juxtaposed between satire and sorrow that I present the following in no particular order:

1 – The Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey




This video clip really caught me by surprise.  It’s not that I’ve never seen church folk retool secular music into worship music before.  No, despite often declaring Satan to be a copycat who is forever offering counterfeits to the great things of God, Christians have often and without a blush of irony, brought “worldly” things into the church.  The thing is though, they usually at least attempt to (awkwardly) “Christianize” it first at least – for a great example see this worship leader’s rather painful attempt to squeeze the word “Jesus” into the lyrics of “You spin me round”.  Not here!  The motto at Morningstar Ministries must be “Go big or go home”* because they don’t even opt for one of those songs that is about someone’s girlfriend but could sorta be about Jesus too.  No, they whip out the freakin Hokey Pokey and they do it with a straight face (though I’m not ruling out that this was some sort of elaborate prank on the congregation).  My problem here is not simply with the practice of lamely copycatting secular media in the church.  I really hate the way that things that are clearly not spiritual are treated as if they are deep wells of spiritual wisdom.  This video demonstrates incredibly well that you can get away with anything in church, no matter how obviously ridiculous, as long as you claim it has spiritual significance.  After all, who can prove you wrong?  It’s not as if anyone can actually look into the spiritual realm and call shenanigans.  It kind of reminds me of this one time in church when there was a fashion show on stage.  Only it was presented as “Not a fashion show but a parable told by prophets”.  To me however it just looked like all the good looking people on the worship team strutting their stuff to Number One Crush by Garbage (there were some Bible verses on in the background at least, but still…).  Of course, I acknowledge I could be mistaken.  Maybe the Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey really does have magic healing powers.  If I ever saw the HGHP heal anything other than non-specific aches and pains – like say blindness or pneumonia for instance – I will take it all back.

2 – The Christian Side Hug




This video is why I hate Poe’s Law.  Everytime someone posts this video there is always some debate whether this is meant to be a joke or not.  Honestly how could you tell?  Either way it shows conclusive proof why Christian Ministries need to stop attempting to be “cool” and “relevant” because they tend to end up being neither.  Whoever wrote the lyrics to this travesty obviously didn’t have a clue what a “roughrider” was for one thing…  I for one tend to think that this was not meant as a joke.  After all, the side hug is a very real Church phenomenon.  But let’s say for the sake of argument that this was only a misguided attempt at humour by some Christian Youth Ministry.  It really changes nothing.  As the proverb goes, “Many a truth is spoken in jest”.  Even if this was done jokingly, it still highlights some of the incredibly unhealthy attitudes in some churches regarding relationships and sexuality.  Notice how in that song it is the girls with their dirty sexy bodies who are to blame for dragging virtuous young men into the seedy world of hugging?  As a student I also saw first hand the damage such all-touching-is-bad dating policies could do.  You tend to end up with either a church full youngsters riddled with deep shame and guilt for the imaginary sins of hugging and kissing or thanks to a strong “Christian courtship” program you could end up with a church full of single 30-somethings who are too dysfunctional to date anyone. 

3 – Tokin’ the Ghost




Now while this video may seem like an obvious joke, the unfortunate truth is that the “New Mystics” are very real and draw a sizable following.  I would like to state categorically that while my profile description mentions my leanings toward Christian mysticism, I am in no shape or form affiliated with these guys nor would I wish to be associated with them.  While these guys may seem like an extreme fringe what they do here is something you may find in a great many Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, namely the practice of taking one or two (or half) verses from the Bible and then using that to build a teaching/theology completely different from all orthodox doctrine.  Makes for some very entertaining, albeit nutty, sermons!

4 – The Holy Ghost enema



I considered using some footage of Benny Hinn here as the man is a goldmine for strange Christian videos.  He even has some videos of his ministry mixed to “Let the bodies hit the floor”!  But then I thought that was just too darn easy and I went with this video of his wife instead.  “What is wrong with that video?”, you may ask me.  (If you did, I guess my follow up question would have to be “Are you kidding me??”)  This video – as well as most of the rest here – shows a very disturbing attitude that reminds me a bit of the story of the Emperor’s new clothes.  What Mrs Hinn (and the others here) is doing is making her words reproof proof.  See if you think what they are doing or saying is ridiculous then the problem is you.  You aren’t spiritual enough, you are too cerebral, too religious, too uptight, you are the one who is out of touch with the Spirit of God.  If what they are saying seems senseless then it is only because you are the one that lacks sense.  Maybe it’s just me but I see a very obvious problem with having an attitude like that…

5 – The Piano Prophetess



Where does one even start on a video like this?  It kinda makes you miss the Old Testament days when there was actually a penalty for making BS claims and passing it off as the Word of God.  This is a problem I have with a lot of what passes for prophecy in the church today.  There are lots of ecstatic utterances, wild, completely unrealistic promises are made and then…  Well then nothing tends to come of it but that doesn’t even slow these prophets down.  They get to carry on consequence free.  I always wonder why no one ever seems to follow up, why no one ever calls them on all the promises (from GOD remember!) they proclaim that come to nothing.  This one is actually worse than most, she is asking for money (lots of it) based on this alleged “word”.  Again, if it turns out I am wrong about this and Christians really do become the Lords of all Media™ (media, media, media, media, media, media) I will apologize most humbly.

6 – The Cancer Pastor



As you can see I saved the worst for last.  This whole incident was just a new level of reprehensible.  However I don’t think it happened because Christians are too gullible or too easily emotionally manipulated.  Honestly, I believe any group could have been taken in by a guy like this.  After all, he wasn’t some sleazy conman who worked his way into their ranks, he was a trusted member of the group since childhood.  He had everyone fooled, who could have seen this coming?  But really, it was because of porn?  Porn made him do it?  Seriously?  James Dobson would be proud I guess but honestly you can’t blame porn for every bad thing you do.  On the other hand, remember what I said earlier about the unhealthy attitudes in church toward sexuality and the damage it can do? 

This little sampling reminds me of a Woody Allen movie quote:
“If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.”






*It may be an unofficial motto but still.  They didn’t just get a building for their church, they got themselves the old PTL compound!  When Rick Joyner allegedly went to heaven he didn’t just get an anointing from God, he got the mantle of the Apostle Paul!  These guys don’t screw around!

How Randomness Can Free Us All

The Interwebs are all aflutter these days because Pat Robinson said that the recent earthquake in Haiti was due to the Haitians making a pact with the devil.  Now there is so much wrong with that statement it’s hard to know where to begin.  However there are far more capable commenters and bloggers out there who have dealt with this extensively so I don’t really feel like I have much to add.

This whole unpleasant business does however perfectly illustrate why randomness is good.  If you accept that the universe is a random and sometimes cruel place, you free yourself from the primitive superstition that bad things only happen because someone angered the gods.  Pat Robinson is a prime example of this mindset but the truth is that he is just a very visible symptom of a disease prevalent throughout Christianity.  Something bad always has to be someone’s fault.  This gets especially bad in Pentecostal/Charismatic circles.  Earthquakes, hurricanes and terrorist attacks can apparently be blamed on gays, abortions and people not believing the Bible like they should.  Miscarriages, diseases and cancer can similarly be blamed on everything from the premarital sex you had as a teenager to the demons living in ornaments you bought from the (evil) East.  No theory can ever be too convoluted, no idea too crazy. 

There is a twofold evil to this line of thinking.  Firstly there is the guilt it induces.  Someone is to blame and usually that someone is YOU.  If you prayed more, believed harder, lived more purely, tithed more often, pled the Blood, anointed your house, confessed more positively and wrote more letters to the editors about the swearing on TV – none of these bad things would have happened!!  Then there is the slimy, horrible conclusion this line of thinking inevitably leads to – that if you just do enough things right, bad things will never happen to you.  If you read your Bible, pray, name it, claim it and write a check to my ministry, you will be shielded from everything bad.  This is why I find this entire mindset to be stupid, evil, disgusting and wrong (not to mention utterly unbiblical).

Simply by accepting that lots of things in this world is out of your (or anyone’s) control can free you from this burden.  There is a lot of randomness in the universe and sometimes that randomness screws you over.  El Niño events can cause droughts and floods half a world a way, movement of the earth’s plates can cause earthquakes, a small genetic copy error can cause birth defects just like it sometimes causes cancer.  Sometimes you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Sometimes, bad things are simply random chance events.  They didn’t happen because you (or anyone else) did anything wrong and nothing you could have done could have stopped it from happening.  Nothing.  It is the great common denominator in humanity – terrible things happen to us all and it is often for no reason at all.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m certainly not suggesting everything happens randomly.  I certainly believe in causality.  Only a complete idiot would deny the existence of cause and effect in our universe.  But sometimes – oftentimes – that cause has nothing to do with you and is utterly out of your control.  I guess that is what it all comes down to in the end – control.  If everything bad in our lives is due to some divine hissyfit or demonic activity then we have control back again, don't we?  Cast out the demons, calm down the Lord and all will be well again, putting us back firmly in the driving seat.

Problem is we are not in control and no good will come from pretending we are.  Some things happen because of us and others just happen to us.  All we really have control over is how we react.  So why not stop reacting like cave people?  Bad things do not happen because the gods are mad at us.  Randomness happens.  Good news is that it is not always bad, good things happen randomly too*.

So if something happens, go ahead and look for a reason – after all if you are somehow causing your misfortune you really should stop – but if there is no apparent cause, don’t invent one.  Accepting the sometimes random nature of life and our own lack of control can free us to instead focus our energies on the things we actually can control.

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EDIT:
It would seem I owe Pat Robertson an apology of sorts.  After reading this article on the history of Haiti it seems that their seemingly endless misfortune really was due to a deal with the devil.  Though not the devil Pastor Pat had in mind I think...
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*This isn’t always good news to everyone though, much of the Psalms for instance consists of bitching about good things happening to people who don’t deserve it.  Oh well...

The Holy Darkness of Words

The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

  Exodus 20:21

Then said Solomon, The LORD hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.

 2 Chron 6:1  

I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

Isaiah 45:3

"Remember when I moved in you; the holy dark was moving too, and every breath we drew was Hallelujah"[1]

Usually I’m not a very big fan of artists adding their own tweaks to classic songs but I make an exception for Rufus Wainwright.  When recorded his version of the Leonard Cohen classic Hallelujah and he changed the words “holy dove” to “holy dark” he gave me a name for something I have been struggling to put my finger on for years.

"I remember that time you told me
"Love is touching souls"
Surely you touched mine
'Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time"[2]

Words.  They bring us joy and sorrow.  They fill us with rapture and disgust.  We use them, abuse them, learn them, rhyme them, we define and redefine them. We love (with) them and we hate (with) them.  They have so much power* and I have to wonder, do words serve us or do we serve them?  We may shape them but they shape us as well.  They are the stuff of our thoughts.  They are the hammers and chisels that carve our very souls.

"There's a blaze of light In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah"[1]

I suspect sometimes that words have a secret life of their own.  I know it sounds crazy but there are times when I listen to a song or read a piece of poetry or prose and I get the sense that the words are barely contained by paragraphs and punctuation.  They buckle and strain against their confinement, trying to break free, trying to take you deeper, show you more.  Sometimes they roll around your mind like snowballs, picking up thoughts and becoming ideas.  Sometimes they leave you with a sense of otherness, something hard to explain.  It’s like the words are bigger than they look.  They seem to show you something just outside your field of vision, something you can just glimpse through the corner of your mind’s eye.  You can’t really name it, you can’t really explain it but its there and it’s transcendent and big and very real and somehow unreal at the same time.

"I've always felt consumed by an air as thick as fever
All the way through my childhood
Even today your birthmark burns
In a sunshine haze you stay vulnerable"[3]

So I guess calling it the holy dark is as good a term as any.

"I am elated in the twilight"[3]

There are many examples of times it seemed like there was something bigger behind the mere words.  Sometimes it took a bit of life experience to get it.  The Counting Crows have all these profound sounding lyrics that on closer inspection must be in-jokes (or just nonsense) because they make no rational sense.  But the song Long December suddenly made sense to me with my mom’s long illness, especially the line that talks about “the smell of hospitals in winter, and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters but no pearls”.  What does that mean?  I can’t tell you exactly.  And yet on some level that makes complete and utter sense to me now.  It resounds with me on a level I cannot quite express.  Similarly, I can’t tell you why the lines from Book of Love that goes:

“The book of love is long and boring
and written very long ago
it’s full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes
and things we're all too young to know”[4]

I hear that last line and something inside me goes “Yes, that’s exactly right” but when I reply “What is?  What do you mean?” I find that I can’t answer me.  There is just something there, something almost tangible, something I almost understand.  It’s a holy darkness.  It’s nothing short of a numinous experience.

"The book of love has music in it
In fact that's where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb"[4]

Now I grant you that the evolutionary explanation for why we experience the numinous - namely that our ancestors who felt there was something out there (even when there wasn’t) tended to live longer than those who didn’t feel there was something out there (when oftentimes there were) - is a very plausible explanation.  But I can’t help but wonder if the reason we have a sense of the numinous could instead be because our species grew up around the numinous, because there truly was something wholly other around us from our infancy – a seldom glimpsed mystery we could only reach for but never truly grasp.

"And even though It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah"[1]

This is one of the reasons why, for all my love of reason and rationality, for all my skepticism, I’m still a believer.  Try as I might, I simply cannot shake the conviction that there is something greater than myself, greater than us all out there.  I can’t tell you exactly why but that’s the holy dark sense that some words leave me with.






* George Orwell (in the brilliant and dreary Nineteen eighty four) suggested that he who controls the words control all – because if you cannot word it you cannot think it (and even if you could manage you could never express it) – something I find utterly profound and incredibly frightening.

[1] Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen / Jeff Buckley / Rufus Wainwright (Pick your favourite version)
[2] A case of you - Tori Amos (The cover far surpasses the original IMHO)
[3] In the Twillight - aKing
[4] Book of love - Peter Gabriel (Again, not the original artist but my favourite version)

Fact vs Truth

I recently had the pleasure to see made for TV version of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather.  Sure, it wasn't as good as the book but adapting a Pratchett book for the screen will always be a daunting task and if you ask me they did a pretty good job.  If you are a fan of Terry Pratchett but you haven't read The Hogfather - basically the plot revolves around the Auditors of Reality hiring the Assassins Guild to kill The Hogfather and Death stepping in to help save him.  If you haven't read The Hogfather and you don't know Terry Pratchett's work - well honestly I wouldn't even know where to begin catching you up.  Go read the Discworld novels, they are brilliant and they will make you laugh so hard you'll probably pee a little.  However they are not just funny, they are just as often quite profound.

After watching this I was especially struck by a conversation at the end of the story between Death and his granddaughter Susan:

“All right,” said Susan. “I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little-“
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They're not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET-- Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point---“
MY POINT EXACTLY.
She tried to assemble her thoughts.
THERE IS A PLACE WHERE TWO GALAXIES HAVE BEEN COLLIDING FOR A MILLION YEARS, said Death, apropos of nothing. DON'T TRY TO TELL ME THAT'S RIGHT.
“Yes, but people don't think about that,” said Susan. Somewhere there was a bed...
CORRECT. STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE’S HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE THAT A... A BED IS A NORMAL THING. IT IS THE MOST AMAZING TALENT.
“Talent?”
OH, YES. A VERY SPECIAL KIND OF STUPIDITY. YOU THINK THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS INSIDE YOUR HEADS.
“You make us sound mad,” said Susan. A nice warm bed...
NO. YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?"

I often like to ponder life's big questions (sometimes even without beer!).  Questions like:  Do things happen for a reason or do they happen due to random chance? Do I have a purpose in life or is the universe ultimately devoid of meaning and purpose?  After listening to that conversation I think I finally know the answer.  The answer is: Yes.

It's strange how sometimes things manage to be astoundingly complex and stunningly simple all at the same time.  But that's what you get when you put people in a universe.  Thanks to people, the truth is sometimes bigger than the facts.  Surely if the universe had no people in it, it would contain nothing but facts.  Alas, it does have us and so instead it is filled with so much more.  It is quite an amazing talent we have, something so amazing it's hard to not be utterly amazed by it and yet...  And yet somehow we don't even seem to notice it at all.  We can take random chance and give it meaning.  We can take the cruelty of an indifferent universe and craft it into purpose.  Can we not see what a miracle it is when we turn accident and tragedy into something deeply meaningful?  When we take the senseless and force it to make sense?  When instead of settling dutifully under the yoke of happenstance and coincidence like every other creature we instead reshape it and make it work for us?  Who else in all of creation can even dream of doing as we do?

See that is why I have no problem believing that the tale told in Genesis is true.  I don't think it is factual though - I in no sense believe the world was made as is 6000 years ago complete with dinosaur fossils to fool the heathen scientists.  Yet who can watch humanity craft nothing into something and salvage beauty out of tragedy and still not comprehend that we are made in the Image of God?

Well I guess I know the answer to that too - we can.  Humans are hands down the strangest beings in existence.  We are bursting at the seams with awesome majesty and yet somehow we manage to become bored.  Bored!  Can you imagine that?!  We can behold, understand and create beauty and splendour far beyond the dreams of anything else that breathes and yet we can content ourselves with sleepwalking through our brief lives.  We can dream so much bigger than lives we know and yet we can satisfy ourselves with scraps of mediocrity.  I think the fact that we even manage to use the term "self fulfilling prophecy" as a derogatory term is mind-blowing!!  What madness is this?!  We can imagine a possible future for ourselves and then make it happen and then somehow manage to snort at the very idea of it - as if it were some trifling thing!! 

Therefore, to our storytellers, our poets, our singers and our artists.  To our dreamers, our planners, our thinkers and philosophers.  To everyone who can look at that which is not true and turn it into truth (or at the very least convince us that it could become true).  To all who remind us that we are so much more than we think we are.  To those who show us that what doesn't destroy us can indeed make us stronger.  To everyone who turns randomness into purpose and  to those who make the meaningless mean something.

Thank you.  Thank you for creating the true, the beautiful and the wonderful where once it was not, for reminding me that everything that isn't but should be, can be.  Thank you.

The photos are of graffiti by Banksy on the Israeli West bank barrier and Bethlehem.  I think his art shows the juxtaposition of facts and truth far better than I could ever hope to.

The forgotten art of asking questions

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."

Kurt Vonnegut in Cat’s Cradle

I’ll be honest with you, I never actually read any Vonnegut. Its one of those things I’ve always wanted to do, like memorize some Shakespeare, but never got round to actually doing. However I once read an article about him and this quote was in it and I thought that was one of the truest things I had ever read. Questioning is in our nature, its something we are born with (and something parents work very hard to get out of us). I have always had a hard time buying into claims of comprehension, especially when it came to profoundly deep and mystic things like spirituality, God and the Bible. How can you possibly read Genesis, Job or even the Psalms and not have some very difficult questions in your mind? Yet in the modern day church we seem to have a processed, pre-packaged, microwave-ready answer to every hard question, every difficult passage. I have to confess though that I never found those to be very filling or nutritious. For all their promises, they never seemed to actually satisfy my questions even a little and so I am constantly amazed at how many people do claim to be utterly satisfied by them! It seems so unnatural, so surreal to take one of these glib, shallow answers and claim that it gives enough understanding to still the hunger of the hard question! Especially because a lot of the time this so called “understanding” is not really understanding at all, it’s more like escape. It really is like the bird landing or the tiger sleeping – its cessation, not fulfillment.

The general opinion among the atheists of the world is that Christians are not very intelligent people. I very much disagree with that but I can’t really blame them for thinking that. What other conclusion can you logically draw about a group of people who would willingly dismiss facts, evidence and even sometimes reality in favour of their faith? We sometimes act as if we have all the answers and have it all figured out but the (glaringly obvious) truth is that we don’t. Not even close. While we frequently accuse everyone else of blindly following the status quo we have made a virtue of blind obedience. We discourage too many questions and even vilify those who won’t stop asking them. But it was not always thus…

While the church may seem to have an issue with people asking questions, God never did. The Bible is filled with questions, hard questions. Just read Psalms, or Job, in fact read any part of it you’d like! People questioned people and most importantly they questioned God and the best part is God didn’t smite anyone for it! Why should He? God Himself seems to be awfully fond of asking questions too! See questions are so important and so good that I am tempted to call them holy. Seeing how God is fond of using them too I don’t think I would be that wrong to do so.

Of course we don’t think of questions that way. We act as if questions are a necessary nuisance, a hurdle we have to jump to access the information we want. So we tend to do it only if we have to, often content with letting someone else do the asking so that we may simply partake of the answer. We tend to discourage over-usage, because questions have this dark quality about them – they can be dangerous! They can take us places we weren’t planning on going, expose flaws, even go as far as to disrupt our way of life completely!! This fear is immensely silly of course, because those happen to be some of the best things about questions! We just forgot the art of the question. If you understand why it’s art, you’ll understand why it’s holy.

If questions were nothing but ways to get information, why would God – who is supposed to know everything already – ask so many questions? Questions can give you so much more than information if you let them. Questions can take you deeper, beyond knowledge and right into understanding. Wisdom even. They can keep us from stagnating in the shallowness and remind us of the riches and the mystery of life and everything in it. It can keep us from simply accepting the most obvious and show us level after level and facet after facet of the truth. The more we ask, the more we think, the more we are able to see. One of my favourite qualities personally is that questions break us right out of groupthink and allows us to be individuals, following our conscience in matters of importance. How many atrocities are committed by people who ask questions? How many by people who refuse to?

I don’t think questions are scary, I think people who never ask them are.

However, when it comes to the fine art of asking questions, just firing off questions like a four year old has about as much art to it as the finger-painting of a four year old. I was on a forum regarding the (never ending) Creationism vs Evolution debate and the creationist on the board was asking questions at 200 km/h – according to him his “pointed questions” were exposing all the weaknesses in the Theory of Evolution. It wasn’t. It was patently clear that he had no desire to learn or listen to anyone, he was just trying to sound smart – he ended up looking ignorant. There really is no point to asking questions if you aren’t planning on listening. If you want to see a good example of questions as an art form, look no further than Jesus. In church we are taught that Jesus is the One with the answers. However, when you read the Gospels it looks more like He was the One with the questions. Just look at how he responded – “Who gave you authority to teach?” His answer: “Who gave John the Baptist authority?” “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?” His answer: “Who’s image is on this coin?” See what I mean about getting past the obvious? Simple yes or no questions may never take you where artful questions can. At times He may have seemed like Captain Obvious. He would go up to blind people or a lame man waiting for healing and ask “What do you want?” Scratch that, He seemed like Field Marshall Obvious! Of course He wasn’t. Because when you think about it, that is an immensely deep question to ask of anyone. I have been wondering about that question all week and I still don’t know how I would answer if He asked me…

Like all good rabbi’s, Jesus had the art of questions mastered. (As I understand it that was a major part of learning the Torah – learning how to ask questions.) Sadly though, we aren’t really trained in the art of questions these days. Still, I think a good first step to getting back there would be to let the questions back into our lives. Let them expose our weaknesses so that we may become stronger, let them expose our foolishness so that we may become wiser. Let them expand our horizons and make us wiser. We should let them take us out of the mundane and into the mystery.

Sure, doing this may stop us from living in the warm glow of relative ignorance. Questions can be scary. You might end up with more questions than answers. You may find out you don't really know as much as you thought. You may even have to start answering yourself and others with the dreaded "I don't know"... But if your faith can’t stand to be questioned, do you really have faith at all? If what you know cannot be questioned, how sure are you of what you know? If my visits to the surgery ward have taught me one thing it’s this: It’s far better to wake up screaming than not to wake up at all.

The Mystery of Heaven and Hell

"So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,

blue skies from pain.

Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil?

Do you think you can tell?"

On the surface of things, talking about the “mysteries” of Heaven and Hell may seem as silly as Pink Floyd’s rhetorical questions. After all, our doctrines of Heaven and Hell are rather well established. However it is not these well established doctrines that I wish to discuss here. What would be the point after all? Among Christians there cannot really be a debate about the existence of Heaven or Hell as their reality was firmly established by Jesus Himself. Furthermore, I doubt I could add anything fresh to a discussion of what they are like. If you truly are interested in the various theories regarding the nature of Heaven or Hell I suggest you crack open a Systematic Theology textbook. Instead, I thought I would discuss something about the existence of Heaven and Hell that we don’t often talk about in Church – the fact that God didn’t really bother telling people about it for a couple of millennia.

Early Judaism had no concept of the afterlife the way we do in modern Christianity. Heaven was at best somewhere “above”, a place where God and His angels resided. With regards to Hell, there is a reason you don’t find it often (and not at all in the NIV) in the Old Testament and that is that the Hebrew word for Hell – Sheol – is usually translated “grave” instead of “Hell”. For the ancient Jews, Sheol was not a place of torment for the wicked but rather a place where the souls of all dead people went. Hell was used much in the same sense as death – “You saved me from hell and the pit” more or less translates to “You saved my life”. Much like the Greek Hades, hell was really just the land of the dead. However, that is where the similarities to other cultures end because the thing that really set the ancient Israelites apart from most other nation is the fact that they paid very little mind to the afterlife. They were the polar opposites of their next door neighbors Egypt. There, the afterlife was more important than life itself and the Pharaohs devoted most of the country’s wealth and resources to secure the best possible position in the afterlife. Not so with the Israelites. As far as we can tell they had no philosophy or myth regarding the afterlife (like the Greeks did). They certainly had no Theology regarding it – there is no discussion of the afterlife in the Torah whatsoever. Those who claimed to be in touch with the afterlife – mediums and witches for instance – were not allowed in the land on pain of death. It seems fair to assume that they thought no good could come from thinking about the afterlife, in fact it seems like they fully expected that only evil would come of it.

By having no focus on the hereafter, the Israelites were very firmly rooted in the here and now and nowhere is this expressed clearer than in the Psalms. There you will often find sentiments expressed along the lines of, “I have been faithful, bless me now!” or “He is wicked, make him suffer and then kill him!” Clearly they had no concept of rewards or justice being handed out after death, instead they fully expected it in the here and now. To them this life was all you had and death was the end. You know what’s really weird about this? God was apparently OK with all that!

See, if you had spent any time with Christians whatsoever, this is the very last thing you would expect God to accept. After all, to the Christian mind Heaven and (especially) Hell really is the point of everything we do. Repentance? So that you don’t go to Hell. Salvation? Getting saved from Hell. Jesus? Came to save us from Hell. Holiness? Because sin might cause us to go to Hell. Obedience to God? So that we may be rewarded in Heaven. And so then our entire faith becomes about making it to Heaven and not going to Hell. It certainly forms the core of all things evangelism related. Just last week I got a DVD in my mailbox entitled “23 minutes in eternity” – it was the testimony of a man who allegedly spent 23 minutes in Hell and a local church was handing out copies as some form of evangelical outreach. Evangelism has become synonymous with convincing people they are going to go to Hell and then offering them a way out of it. Thousands of tracts are distributed daily all with this very message. The entire Gospel message has been reduced to “turn or burn”. Frankly, if you have ever been within earshot of any kind of evangelistic outreach you would probably have gotten the message that God’s number one care in life is Hell.

But if that is true, why didn’t He bother telling anyone about it for so long? If the most important message that anyone can hear is that they are in fact hellbound – despite their good deeds – why did God not say it? Not from Mt Sinai, not through the Law or the judges or the kings or the prophets, not once. If we need to be constantly reminded that souls are being lost every day – via forwarded emails, sermons, tracts and films – due to our inaction, why was God Himself so inactive on the subject for so long?

Again, I’m not in the least bit trying to argue against the existence of Heaven and Hell. Jesus spoke about it at length after all, He left no doubts. What I am asking is why, if it is so incredibly important that every soul must know about Hell, did God not bother telling anyone about it for so long? And another thing – if it really forms the core of evangelistic outreach, why didn’t the New Testament evangelists (who certainly knew about Hell) use it? John the Baptist preached repentance but not in order to avoid hell but to welcome the Kingdom. Jesus discussed hell and final punishment often and yet His message was always that the Kingdom of God was at hand. When He sent out the disciples to preach, the message was again a Kingdom one, not a fire and brimstone one. In fact, in the sermons of the Apostles, from Peter to Paul you never seem to hear them say anything like “turn or burn”. They didn’t present people with Hellfire, they presented them with Jesus.

So if no one in the Bible ever converted the unsaved by first convincing them they were hell-bound, why is that standard operating procedure now? I get that it’s easier that way. In fact I recently saw a piece of a “Way of the Master” video by Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort where they explicitly explained that the best way to reach someone is not to reason with them but rather to “bypass their intelligence and go straight for the heart” – which turned out to mean, scare them with damnation and they will want to be saved. Just because it’s easier, does that make it right? Sure the “turn or burn” message is effective in soul winning but it does that in the same fashion that electoral violence and intimidation is effective at election winning. Shouldn’t it be significant to us that the New Testament church we all envy was built not on “turn or burn” but on “Have you heard about my friend Jesus”? Do we just not trust that the Holy Spirit is as powerful today as He was then? Is the easy way really the best way? Should we be choosing quantity over quality?

But I digress, the original question was about why God waited so long to tell people about the realities of the afterlife. Well obviously I can’t pretend to know but would guess that maybe God wanted it to be about Him. Only Him. Not about what we can get, not about the punishment we fear, just Him. Maybe the way God revealed things tells us that knowing about the afterlife is for the mature, not the novice. See, I believe that learning about heaven and Hell too soon can cause us to lose sight of God altogether. It can simply become about us, about us choosing the good option over the bad. When you get right down to it, it’s possible to focus on the afterlife while thinking of God only peripherally. Knowing God should be first and foremost, when Heaven becomes anything more than a continuing relationship with God and Hell becomes anything more than separation from Him to us, maybe we are in trouble. I often look at David, how he loved and worshiped God with such vigor and passion – all while believing that after death he would no longer be able to worship God – and I wonder if I could have done the same. What would our faith look like if God announced today that Heaven and Hell was off the table, this life is all there is? Would we worship the same? Would we live the same? How would we evangelize? Would we even spread the Gospel if we didn’t believe in a Heaven and a Hell? Would we still try to live a holy life? (On a side note, am I the only one who finds it creepy as hell when Christians tell unbelievers that “if there is no heaven and hell you might as well go out raping and killing people” Why is it that the fundamentalist mind always seems to go straight for rape and murder? I think it’s really disturbing. ) Honestly I can’t be sure I would answer yes to all that. This just suggests to me that my religion is not very God focused. After all, God should matter more to me than eternity should He not? We often say Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship. Well if it is a relationship shouldn’t we be more concerned with making the Person we are in a relationship with happy than with the rewards and punishments of it?

Also I think a bonus side effect of not knowing about the afterlife was that the ancient Israelites focused on the here and now. The afterlife can be dangerous in that sense after all – we can be so fixated on the “one day” that we fail to be of any use in the “right now”…

Beware of the dog: The mystery of manhood

This may be the information age, but nevertheless it seems men today are haunted by more really hard questions than at any other time. Questions like: What kind of world am I leaving for my children? How much did I drink last night? Is “sweet” an insult or a compliment? Am I making enough money? At what age should I start having my prostate checked? Should I throw this out or eat it? Am I turning into my father? Why do women love assholes? Celine Dion, really? Why does she always want to know what I am thinking about? Where is the remote? Could I survive in prison, you know, theoretically? Is technology making me redundant? Does my life have any meaning? Would I rather be stuck on a deserted island with Bear Grylls or Jessica Alba? Am I fooling anyone? Why do all women think they’re fat? Can this thing go any faster? What would happen to my family if I died today? Does chicken count as a vegetable?

Certainly all of these are valid questions and certainly they are but a sampling of the issues that face men today, but there is one question that haunts the men of the 21^st century like no other: Where are all the real men?

It’s a question asked with alarming frequency and for such a simple sounding question it’s a remarkably hard one to answer. Maybe because it’s really a two part question: 1) What is a real man? and 2) where are they? See, once you answer part 1, part 2 should be really easy. Except it seems everyone has a really hard time with part 1…

It’s really the kind of question that is part of the background noise of every man’s heart, but every now and again, it jumps out from the shadows and assaults you. For me this happened a while ago when a friend (freshly returned from a girl’s weekend out where this was a topic of discussion) sprung it on me. OK, maybe “sprung it on me” sounds a little harsh, but “how would you define a real man?” really is one of those questions that always feel more sprung than asked. It was in that moment that I came to the shocking realization that I honestly didn’t have an answer ready. I mean we all use the term “real man” all the time, but what does that actually mean? Is there even just one definition or will the answers differ by culture and age group? So I decided to start asking around and sprung the dread question on my own unsuspecting friends. Well suffice it to say that the answers I got were varied and interesting, but clearly they were guessing as much as I was. Actually I noticed something rather interesting – all answers (well from those who took the question seriously anyway) appeared to fall in one of three categories. The interesting part is that when discussing the meaning of mankind being created in the Image of God, theologians use the exact same categories – Substantive, Relational and Functional.

Firstly (and most popular) is the substantive view – the idea that a real man is defined by something that is a part of him, some ability or characteristic that makes a man a real man. Typically these would be things like backbone, strength, passion, courage, a cool head under pressure, integrity, honour, driving skills, an awesome mullet, being responsible, things like that. In his book To Own a Dragon, (which I strongly recommend by the way) Don Miller gives his very simple definition of a real man – a person with a penis. Now me, I have always preferred the simple answers but I’m going to ask for a little more than Don’s definition here. Its not that I think he is utterly wrong, in fact I agree that he has identified a rather important component there, it’s just that if that were the only qualification we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.

Secondly there is the relational view – the idea that a real man is defined by his relationships. In this view a man is a real man when he is a good father, a good husband, respected in his work, church and community. Here the idea is that it is not so much something about yourself that makes you a real man but rather that it is the way you relate to others that define you. The (Christian) guys who hold this view will often point to Jesus as a perfect example in that His greatness lay in His willingness to lay down His life for others.

Lastly there is the functional view – that a man is defined by something he does. People who hold this view would say that a real man is a leader, someone who is in charge, who can subdue the earth, wrestle bears, tame the wilderness etc. I actually got this response rather often, that a real man is someone who can walk into any situation and take charge of it and make everything that is wrong right again.

Now these three categories (and their myriad combinations) are good and well, but they didn’t really give me the answer to the question – they just gave me more options. They may be completely right, but I didn’t feel like they were. So then, after much meditating, here is the answer I came up with. Whether it is the right answer I cannot say, all I can say with any certainty is that this is my answer to the question.

I think that a “real” man is a man who is greater than his biology. Let me explain. I think the reason you never seem to hear anyone debate what a “real woman” is supposed to be is due to the fact that (and please, I’m not trying to stereotype or generalize too much here but bear with me) to a large extent, women are helped by their biology to be women. With men it’s kind of the opposite. Our biology doesn’t make us more noble, it makes us less. On a purely biological, instinctual level, a man actually resembles a dog more than anything else.

Think about it. (Remember, I’m talking about the male of the species in terms of his most basic, primal self here.) Men are aggressive, violent and yet will run away when they feel the situation becoming too threatening. Men will hump anything – (again, on the most primal level) sexually there is no such thing as “off limits”. Men love to do nothing, eat more than they need to and prefer to do what feels good in the moment without a thought for the future. Responsibility and fidelity are foreign concepts, the only thing that comes naturally is irresponsibility – as evidenced by the ease with which some men can leave their families behind for a pretty new young thing. Also, when in groups, men submit to the will of the pack – and this tends to bring out the worst in them. Not to mention the fact that men love to chase cars and eat disgusting things…

Men are also bettered by the same things as dogs. For one thing, there is discipline – a system of order with rewards for good behavior and punishment for bad behavior gets dogs to behave and it certainly seems to work for men in the form of society. If you want proof, just look at men in places outside of normal society – jails and gangs for instance – and you will notice that their behavior is far closer to that of the dog. Of course, society and its discipline isn’t really what it used to be and therefore there seems to be a return to the dog side for men. There is of course another good influence – a caring relationship. There is a big difference in behavior between a beloved pet dog and a feral stray dog and for the same reason there seems to be a marked difference in behavior between single, unattached men and those in loving family relationships. Being in the care of a superior species seems to make all the difference in the world as statistically instances of drug abuse, violence, criminal activity and other dog-like behavior is far higher among single men than among married men. Of course this isn’t always the case either as the influence is not always good. In the same way that some owners bring out the worst in their dogs, some women bring out the worst in men.

Thing is though, men are not dogs. We are not simple slaves to our biology and environment the way dogs are. We don’t get to just shrug and say “Oh well, the penis is mightier than the brain, what can we do?” because there is something greater, something higher in us and we can choose that over our baser instincts. For all our faults, we are capable of so much greatness – incredible acts of self-sacrifice, bravery, love, compassion, goodness and honor. It’s not just that we can be more than dogs, it’s that we can be SO MUCH more than dogs. Seems the real problem is that a man is torn between two opposing natures – a dog-like nature on the one side and a God-like nature on the other. So then, my definition of a real man is a man who consistently chooses his God-like nature over his dog-like nature. Someone who again and again will choose courage over cowardice, restraint over indulgence, calm over aggression, kindness over cruelty. A man who will stand and fight when every fiber in him wants to get out, who will sacrifice when everything in him wants to be selfish, who is not mindlessly aggressive and yet doesn’t go to the other extreme and becomes passive. As I said, a man who is greater than his biology.

In this definition, all three views seem to come together. It is substantive on the one hand because we are talking about something in a man, something that is a part of him - mainly self control and good character - and it should be part of a man in order to be real. If it has to be constantly forced and reinforced externally, what value does it have after all? If a man only acts well because he has a woman in his life or because he fears punishment, can we really think of him as a real man? After all, remove the control and we are back to dog-like behavior. Therefore it needs to be substantive. However this doesn’t just naturally become part of a man, it has to be taught and instilled, so it is relational too. A man is not born with a natural inclination to choose God-like behavior, he has to be shown how. Family, community and above all good male role models and father figures are essential if you want a man to become a real man. To a large extent, this explains the current problem – the world is suffering from an epidemic of fatherlessness and most of the male role models tend to model dog-like behavior more than anything else. Truly, this just shows how powerful and important the relational aspect really is! At the same time, it needs to be functional as well. Being a real man is something a man needs to do, needs to choose, needs to consistently choose to be, every waking hour of his life. One can’t be abusive half the time and kind the other and expect to be thought of as a real man.

Now these are just my opinions and it is based on nothing more than my own thoughts and observations. Feel free to disagree, but please give me your opinion then because this is something worth discussing. The question regarding what a real man is is a question worth spending some time on, especially for a Christian, the question of what a real man is way bigger than a discussion about gender. There is a great mystery here which we are bound to miss if we ignore it. Think about it, God – who has to be so far beyond our concepts of male and female – chose to represent Himself as male, as a Father. Therefore, if we don’t understand what that really means, we miss out on something vital that God is communicating to us. What this tells me about God is that just like a real man, God is someone who has a lot of power and chooses to use it for creation instead of destruction, someone who doesn’t have to love but yet chooses to love, who isn’t biologically bound to care but wants to and chooses to care anyway. I think this reveals a lot about God to us.

But whether you believe that this has anything to do with God or not, the question of what a real man is still matters greatly. It is pretty obvious that there is something very wrong with the men of the world and the entire world is suffering for it. We have an entire generation of young men who don’t see a problem with slipping rohypnol into a girls drink. The immense number of family violence, rapes, child molestation and assaults aren’t being perpetrated by aliens and it doesn’t just happen among “other people”. No matter who you are, no matter where you come from men who look just like you with a background like yours are perpetrating these horrors. Now I’m not naïve enough to think that simply having discussions about manhood will magically fix all this, but we have to start somewhere. Something about manhood has been lost and it needs to be reclaimed or the situation will only get worse. Maybe talking about it is a start. In any case it beats doing nothing and complaining.